So you're telling me that if city came in with a completely over the top fee, for which they have previous for. You wouldn't accept it?
I can't see why anyone in Levy's position would sell Bale. Let's look at the two scenarios here.
Bale leaves for X Million, let's say 50-60 million just to be conservative here. He's left with a lot of money to either pocket for the stadium or spend on improving the squad and an army of unbelievably annoyed fans. Not to mention the lure for a lot of high profile players to make a move to our club this year. ( I say high profile but of course within reason, no Ronaldo's etc). Maybe we'd sign some good or great players but this would send out such a negative message and Levy would lose a lot of face that I just can't see it happening. Maybe we make top four or maybe we don't either way there are a lot of unhappy faces.
If we keep him, tie him up to a new contract then we add value to him, give him the money he deserves considering his performances, and have a lure for bigger players to come play for us. Levy being a business man I'm sure he knows that if this happens he can afford to open up the purse strings and go for broke, maybe shelling out say 30-40 odd million (hypothetically at this stage) on a few signings to push us on to another level. We make Champions League then we have another reason to keep Bale happy and at our club, the opportunity to add further top quality recruits next summer and not to mention the windfall that comes with making the CL. If it does go tits up and we don't manage to make it we make up our losses by selling Bale and that's when the tying him up for an extra pays off and we can easily AT LEAST get our £30-40 million back. It would be a bitter blow but I genuinely feel that Levy knows this is make or break time and whether he chooses to stick to his haggling ways or not he is too business savvy to not have noticed this kind of opportunity is one that we will realistically not have for quite some time.
In short I think Levy knows what he's doing and is acting sensibly this window and doing what's best for us in the long term, whether our patience permits it or not.